It's funny how your reaction to books changes over time. I remember reading the first few books in this series when I was a teenager, and Lucy was the most interesting character for me then. Now she's a pain in the arse that irritates me with her sulky, self-destructive drama every time she's on-page. I'm sorry to say that in The Body Farm she's absolutely taking after her aunt, whose boring romance with the married Benton kicks off a book-long tantrum from Marino that had me rolling my eyes at all of them. Scarpetta's constant looking-down at her (admittedly awful) sister because of that sister's poor behaviour with men is just flat-out hypocritical at this point.

Please just give me the crimes and the science... and the cooking. If Scarpetta has to work through her issues outside of the morgue, I'd rather read about her delicious food than this trainwreck of relationships. The crimes, here, were the most interesting thing: the slow unveiling of the antagonist's dreadful behaviour was genuinely disturbing.